My guess would be, that he did something in Starfleet Academy that lead to someone dead. But to keep it on the down low they made a cover up story.
All I’m saying is that we never see Nick and Tom in the sane room
The Mysterio bros?
They even witness protectioned his identity.
Pretty cool of his admiral dad to go along with the name change.
Paying royalties to a scriptwriter for writing a very minor character is dumb in this case. The same reason we have a Kira Nerys and not Ro Laren.
A myth. The episode with Locarno was by staff writers, wouldn’t have needed any extra fee to re-use the same character. Ro was already semi-regular character too, same deal.
I think Ron Moore, one of the staff writers for that season of TNG, mentioned this in a recent interview.
So then why get the same actor to play the identical role with a different name, instead of using a character that was planned?
Per Memory Alpha,
In interviews the producers of Voyager have said they felt Locarno’s actions in that episode made him “irredeemable”. (TNG Season 5 DVD-special feature, Memorable Missions Year Five: “The First Duty”)
Ask the writers. (I guess they didn’t want actual blood on Paris’ hands, or decided it didn’t make sense for him to be back in the fleet, which is what Lower Decks have done with Locarno)
According to Robert Duncan McNeal, Larcarno gave the impression of being a good guy who made a mistake when in reality deep down he was a bad guy, whereas Paris was the other way around.
The story I heard with Ro on DS9 was Michelle Forbes didn’t want to commit to a full-time TV gig, wanting to pick up more movie roles.
I always assumed it had more to do with him smuggling goods into federation colonies or some such. He’s a very good pilot because he knows how to slip between the cracks of sensor fields and how to use unconventional maneuvers to throw off anyone chasing him. Sounds like the behaviour of a smuggler to me.
Also, I’m pretty sure the pitch for Tom Paris was basically “Han Solo but Star Trek”.
That was also the pitch for Neelix though 😅
lol yeah I never really understood why they tried to sell Neelix as this tough, no-nonsense scrapper when they hired this guy to play the role. Star Trek has some very questionable casting sometimes. Not that Neelix isn’t great, but he definitely isn’t a “tough guy”.
Neelix is more like. C-3PO? Even their vocal inflections include that little breathy hesitation.
On the other hand, if they made the character correctly, that guy being a real ass-kicking chaotic-good smuggler that faced armies and got our laughing would be awesome.
After watching Phillips in Avenue5 they shoulda stopped trying to disneyfy Neelix and just made him full on Spike
“I’m in a mixed marriage myself”
Nah if he did he wouldnt have tried blowing up the oxygen extraction plants on that water bubble colony to protect their environment. The types to storm the federation capitol would have been the type to want people like paris thrown out of hover copters for being too woke
I don’t think one good thing offsets the entire rest of Tom’s personality. He says some racist shit to Chakotay in the pilot.
He’s definitely the kind of guy who is recording a podcast in the Delta Flyer with his wraparound sunglasses on.
Wasnt it obviously Maquis related? I imagine smuggling people(Bajorans) out of Cardassia territories or smuggling weapons to Maquis supporters
Truly Voyager was the scratched liberal/bleeding fascist Trek series.
They even have a season where Janeway orders the doctor to forcibly detransition a nonbinary person
